I’m going to start with a very broad question and maybe even kind of a loaded question, but we’ll see how it goes.
[laughs] Okay.
From the outside looking in, there’s a lot of misconceptions about working with Marvel, how the process works, the inner workings, and whether directors get the final say or if it’s more producer-driven. I figured, short of [“Quantumania” director Peyton Reed] himself, you would be the one to ask. How difficult was it to get everybody’s voices into the mix in the final product?
Well, I was lucky enough to work with — this is the second time I’ve worked with Peyton, so we had a real shorthand going in and he’s amazing. He’s an amazing leader, and I think this movie is very different from the first two, obviously. But the through-line through all these movies, I think, is his mastery of tone and his balance of tone. Because these movies are weird [laughs], and they take big, weird swings and they have funny off-center jokes, but they’re sincere, right? There’s a heart on its sleeve to it.
And that heart is still apparent here in this movie, in this big, weird world. And that’s 100% Peyton being the filmmaker at the forefront of this. With any filmmaker I’ve worked on, I view my job as supporting them and as supporting their voice and putting it at the forefront. Because that is what will keep the MCU relevant, is feeling like each of these films, there’s a voice that steps forward and you are getting an experience that is unique to that film and it’s different from the rest of the MCU.
The interconnectivity is fun. We like it. We like that these movies connect. But at the end of the day, when you sit down and watch these movies and you have your popcorn, they have to function on their own. And the best way to do that is by empowering a Peyton Reed to bring his voice to the table. James Gunn, Shane Black, who I got to work with, I think you see these filmmakers’ voices come through loud and clear in these processes. And the people that we’ve worked with know that, behind the scenes, we’re all building it together. We’re there and we all want to make the best movie in support of this filmmaker.
